310 corvim:. 



This species is sometimes, if not generally, infested with para- 

 sitic insects (lice) to an extraordinary degree, so much so as in 

 one instance to deter a friend from skinning one he had received, 

 just after it was shot. On mentioning this to another amateur 

 taxidermist, he remarked, that in skinning one of these birds, 

 he became ' ' covered " with its parasites. According to my own 

 observation, birds of prey, or species partly carnivorous, are more 

 infested with lice than others ; and particularly with those belong- 

 ing to the most active and stirring genera of their attractive tribe ! 

 In Mr. Denny's Monographia Anoplurorum Britannia?, much 

 information will be found on this subject. 



THE GREY CROW.* 

 Hooded Crow. 



Corvus comix, Linn. 



Is common in Ireland, and resident in all quarters of the 

 island. 



In the north and east, it has come under my own observation at 

 every period of the year, and is fully as numerous in summer as 

 at any other time. At tins season, too, I have remarked the bird 

 as common in the west and south ; and my correspondents there 

 agree in noticing it as a resident species. Sir. Wm. Jardine 

 observes : — " So far as our information and observation have ex- 

 tended, this species is stationary through the year in the northern 

 parts of Scotland, while in the south, and in some parts of Eng- 

 land, it is migratory." f The Rev. L. Jenyns, in a note to 

 p. 143, of his edition of White's Selborne (1843), remarks, that 

 tins bird "has, very rarely been known to breed in England," and 



* In the north of Ireland, it is commonly called by this, its most distinctive appel- 

 lation : in some parts of the south, Scald Crow is the name in frequent use. In a 

 foot-note to the starling, I have noticed the grey crow as called huddy iu Perthshire, 

 where I had been shooting. Hoddy, is applied by Mr. Macgillivray to the carrion 

 crow (vol. i. p. 516, and vol. iii. p. 715), and given in the former volume as one of 

 many of its names ; in the latter, the species is called simply " hoddy or carrion crow." 



t Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 233. 



